WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING

What Others Are Saying

September 02, 2006

"It became apparent to me that between me and death there was censure, but that I was condemned to hope." So wrote the Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz in 1994, the same year he was stabbed in the neck by an Islamic fanatic who took offense at a religious allegory Mahfouz had penned 40 years earlier. Mahfouz survived that "censure," as he did so many others until his death this week (of natural causes) at the age of 94. ... But perhaps Mahfouz's most important legacy is as a model of Arab intellectual life at its best--critical and playful, sensual and moderate, authentically Egyptian but seriously engaged with the better currents of Western intellectual life.

Wall Street Journal

Being against the way the war turned out is one thing, but deciding what to do now is another. Given the regrettable one-way nature of time, sentiment against the war can be turned into political action only if it is linked to sentiment for something.

What do you, Mr. Voter, want us to do? Get out now? Set a date-certain phased withdrawal? Kick ass harder to win win win? Public opinion expert Peter Feaver, now advising Bush, thinks the real problem is not that Americans are tired, or think the war was a mistake, or are wimpily averse to casualties, but that they aren't confident Bush has a rugged enough end game that is sure to achieve all our war goals, whatever those might be at this point.

Brian Doherty, Reason

All this for a DNA mismatch: the extradition of American John Mark Karr from Thailand, the media horde recording his every move, and the tax dollars spent on another false lead in the 1996 murder of a child beauty queen. But wait. Something beneficial might actually come from this spectacle. Precisely because of the intense coverage and actual extradition, this case could serve to deter pedophiles who travel to child-sex havens such as Thailand, the Philippines and Costa Rica. At the very least, it can educate businesses, governments and citizens about the serious problem of trade in children for sex and men who travel abroad for such acts.